Recently I had the opportunity to walk around Hudson Yards in New York City. I love the area’s architectural modernity amid lush flora, creative energy, and contemporary art expressions intertwined with awakening the senses and soothing the soul.

One exhibition, in particular, that held my attention was The Pippins: Dilemma in Color. This exhibit featured unique satirical caricatures individually represented in a collection of over 50 vibrantly coloured audacious drawings and 21 attendant poems.

A recount of Medieval history reminds us that Pippin was the lonely humped-back son of the Medieval emperor Charlemagne. In 792 Pippin plotted against his father with a group of leading Frankish nobles. However, his plans were thwarted. But rather than have his son executed, Charlemagne commuted Pippin’s sentence to torture and exiled him to a monastery. Pippin died in 811.

A millennium later I stood absorbing the powerful images and messages represented with modern-day Pippins from a talented millennial artist, Charles Winthrop Norton. The strength of his art, using humour to channel an urgent social purpose through visceral insights into our brutal societal dysfunctionality, was ironically beautiful.

He was on a mission to expose our foolish glorification of the influential people whose privilege inflicted grave injustice on the ‘have-nots’ in our society. Yet, deep compassion and empathy vibrated throughout his creative narratives of global unfairness and indignity, almost as if he was running out of time.

Neither US President Donald Trump nor UK’s Queen Elizabeth II escaped his artistic advocacy.

As I delved deeper into the complexities of his work, I learned Norton battled severe depression and mental health issues leading to his death in July 2019. He was only 24.

The exhibition was installed by Project Healthy Minds. A millennial/Gen Z-driven non-profit start-up for a new era of mental wellness which uses anti-stigma campaigns to change attitudes, discover help, and build programmes and partnerships that expand access to care. Norton’s family has allowed the organisation to raise funds using his work to help other young people struggling with severe depression.

SOS — Help our youth struggling with depression

Approximately one million people worldwide die by suicide annually, nearly one death every 40 seconds. It is the second-leading cause of death globally for those aged between 15 to 24 years, and depression is the leading cause. In Jamaica, the suicide rate is approximately 2.1 per 100,000, with statistics from the Jamaica Constabulary Force reflecting between 47 and 56 deaths per year due to suicide (Ministry of Health and Wellness, 2020).

More than 60 per cent of people admitted to our hospitals having attempted suicide are under 24 (Ministry of Health, 2014). Furthermore, in a 2018 poll conducted by UNICEF through the social messaging platform U-Report, 53 per cent respondents said they had considered suicide.

Last week my heart broke when I learned of young Anthony Willocks, the 26-year-old soldier suspected of committing suicide in his community of Somerton, St James. According to his brothers, Anthony displayed signs of depression when their father died in 2010 and their mother shortly after. However, even though he went on to do well and become a soldier, it was clear to them that he was still grappling with depression, but they never discussed it with him because: “We a man so we nah go talk bout that.” They lamented he became chronically sad, always holding his head down this August after the breakup with his girlfriend. They are devastated as they seek to clear the image of their youngest sibling hanging from a rope inside their family’s abandoned house. (Jamaica Observer, November 3, 2022)

Depression and mental illness are uncomfortable subjects that many Jamaicans often do not want to discuss, especially in rural communities. “Lively up yuhself nuh man,” “It soon pass,” “God doesn’t give you more than you can bear,” “Pray about it and leave it to God,” and “Look how much you have going for you…” are some of the reactions people give to depressed loved ones they may encounter. The reality is the veritable “just snap out of it” will not work.

They’re unaware that depression is a mood disorder that can make a person experience constant sadness, even to the point that they detach from life interests. As a result, it affects how they feel, think, and behave, leading to emotional and physical problems. While all of us may experience sadness at some point in our lives, clinical depression is more severe when the sadness is prolonged.

Also, adverse environmental factors may make people feel hopeless and helpless. These include general poverty, extreme physical punishment, emotional abuse, and inconsistent or no access to education may also make people feel like they are a burden to their families or society and seek to remove themselves through suicide physically. (Dr Kevin Goldborune, Jamaica’s director of mental health and substance abuse services)

Our national estimate of the prevalence of depression is 14.3 per cent. For men, 9.9 per cent; and for women, 18.5 per cent. The majority was highest among urban women, 19.2 per cent, and lowest among rural men, 7.3 per cent. (Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey, 2016-2017)

Moreover, of the 800,000 Jamaicans under 18, roughly 20 per cent, or 160,000, have a mental disorder, and 5 per cent, or 40,000, have severe mental disorders. Director of the child and adolescent mental health in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Dr Judith Leiba says the most common disorders observed in children across the island are attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), major depression disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, and conduct disorder. (Jamaica Information Service, July 2021)

Yet, there are only three formally trained child/adolescent psychiatrists in the country, and 20 child guidance clinics. Approximately 3,500 children access the facilities offered through these sites islandwide. So more than 95 per cent, or over 110,000 children and adolescents have a mental disorder, maybe going unrecognised and untreated if we rely only on these government settings. Dr Ganesh Shetty, child and adolescent psychiatrist, cited only 7 per cent of our children’s mental health needs are being met. (Caribbean Policy Research Institute, ‘Mind the Gap’, June 2021)

Meeting our youth where they are

Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but over the past year our local newscasts have featured some disturbing headlines about our youth: ’14-y-o girl attempts suicide after being ‘touched’ by cousin’, ’13-y-o girl found hanging by electrical cord, suicide suspected’, ’15-y-o St Andrew boy commits suicide’, ‘Boy dies in suspected suicide in Westmoreland’, ‘St Ann family rattled after suspected suicide by a second son’ are only a few.

This year the Government will spend $1.858 billion to:

1) support the occupational therapy and rehabilitation programme of the Bellevue Hospital and the Kenneth Royes Rehabilitation Centre, and

2) drive policy towards more community-based care for individuals with mental disorders and train community leaders and social workers to identify and report red flags of a mental illness.

We should include our creative arts as a part of our intervention mix. As a former minister of youth and culture I understand its impact on youth behaviour, which is why we introduced music, art, dance, and drama to some of our juvenile places of safety and remand centres between 2014 to 2016. Therefore, let us enlist Kingston Biennale artist Katrina Coombs, who organised two museum installations for Mental Health Month, and Studio 174 from the Jamaica National’s The Resolution Project.

“Everything has its season

Everything has its time

Show me a reason,

and I’ll soon show you a rhyme

Cats fit on the windowsill

Children fit in the snow

Why do I feel I don’t fit in anywhere I go?”

(CWN)

As we observe Youth Month, too many Jamaican youth are “shouldering the weight of the world” and feel helpless in their struggle. Our mission must be to meet them where they are to de-stigmatise conversations around mental illness and provide access to devoted mental health resources, education, and research for them and their friends and families that support them before it’s too late.

If you or someone you know needs help, call the 24-hour helpline: Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Helpline at 1-888-639-5433. It’s free!

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.